Let Me Fall
by SumerianScribe
Summary: It was a long and clumsy sort of dance, but they had all the time in the world to see it through to the end. — PB/Marcy.


**LET ME FALL**

_By SumerianScribe _

**SUMMARY:** It was a long and clumsy sort of dance, but they had all the time in the world to see it through to the end.

**A/N:** _Princess Bubblegum and Marceline Abadeer. 50 prompts. Anachronic order. Cover image belongs to Natasha Allegri. Can be found on her blog at natazilla dot tumblr dot com/post/9058998139._

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**1. Blame**

Sometimes when Marceline looks at her, with her soft sweet-smelling hair and distracted eyes and light lilting laugh, it feels like she is the singular reason behind Marceline's smiles and Marceline's aches—which is saying something, because over the course of a thousand years, she's accumulated quite a collection of both.

**2. Proof**

The vampire's intoxicatingly familiar scent had faded from the fibres of the black fabric eternities ago but Bubblegum pressed her face into the T-shirt and inhaled anyway, and felt the ghost of a soft, icy caress on the back of her neck.

**3. Assistance**

"As a powerful vampire with demonic parentage, it is highly unlikely that a fall of even forty thousand feet can kill you. Still, though... falling in love just might." "...Gee. Thanks a lot, Bonnie."

**4. Going**

Marceline used to love coasting into Bubblegum's lab on quiet nights and watching her work on her strange, sleep-deprived experiments; she'd bug her with bored questions and flirtatious jokes, trying to get the dork to look up from her notepad (_"Ugh—quit it, Marceline! Go play with your undead sorority friends or something." "Aw, come on, Bonnie. I caught you smiling when I came in."_)

**5. Birthday**

On her 874th birthday, Bubblegum gave her a pretty pink card addressed to the Vampire Queen. On her 996th birthday, Bubblegum gave her a smile and a kiss on the cheek so quick it seared Marceline's skin. On her 997th birthday, Bubblegum gave her a cool stare and a broken heart. On her 1002nd birthday, they were back to the greeting card—but this one came with a hesitant hug that sent electric jolts down Marceline's spine.

**6. Scientist**

The roguish, raven-haired vampire queen with the playful grin and restless spirit fascinated her, fixated her; she was undead, with a demon father and a vampire's body, but flickering in her eyes and crouching behind her songs was an undeniable humanity that confused, intrigued, and _thrilled_ Bubblegum to her candy core.

**7. Silent**

"_If you don't want me to leave, just say so."_

**8. Behalf**

Marceline doesn't get warm or cold, but she still shivers as Bubblegum's gentle fingers slip under her tattered T-shirt and trace tingling patterns across her back—so the vampire closes her eyes and with her finger she scratches on the knee of her jeans _"bonnie bonnie bonnie"_ over and over and over again. (_"Hey, Princess? What's that you're writing on my back?" "Three point one four one five nine..."_)

**9. Rumor**

Sometimes Marceline would joke about their odd friendship becoming something more. "What would the Ooo tabloids say," Marceline speculated, raising a brow suggestively. "'The amazing, smart, breathtaking Beauty... and her crazy mad-scientist Beast made out of candy.'" (_"You're such a charmer, Marceline."_)

**10. Tip**

_Don't let me fall. I don't want to fall for you, I don't—_and that was when she called out her name, and Marceline turned around, and suddenly Bonnie's dizzying smile was directed entirely at _her._ (_"...Damn."_)

**11. Idle**

Bubblegum thought that maybe if she left it alone long enough, if she avoided it long enough, if she let a sort of anger develop and simmer and swell and suffocate her, then maybe, eventually, the feeling in the back of her throat and pit of her stomach would disappear. Maybe, eventually, her heartbeat would stop stuttering at the sight of her.

**12. Brother**

For months, the words had been drifting formlessly in her mind, flittering at the frayed edges of her consciousness, seeping into the spaces between her dreams and charging the air around her with a tense sort of electricity—but it was Finn who first spoke them, gave them shape: _"Marceline's in love with you, you know."_

**13. Beneath**

"Is it wrong that I sometimes fantasize about dissecting you and painting the castle walls with your undead organs?" "I dunno. Is it wrong that I was a little turned-on by what you just said?"

**14. Redecorate**

As time crept by, more and more black and red seemed to be edging their way into the Candy Castle's royal bedroom. They came in small bursts, in the form of shirts, towels, a bass guitar—but when they disappeared, it was all at once and during the space between seconds.

**15. Gravitation**

It was hard to ignore their fingers constantly brushing, their smiles lingering and lodging in one another's chest—somehow, though, they managed it anyways.

**16. Kilt**

With uncharacteristic hesitation, Marceline placed her hands on the princess's waist, letting herself to be drawn closer as Bonnie's fingers caressed her shoulders and danced across the back of her neck. (_"Uh, PB. Everyone's staring." "I know, stupid."_)

**17. Afterthought**

Even though their relationship's never been much of a _relationship_ (and was never much of a friendship either, for that matter), it still feels like a break-up to Marceline. Even though it feels like a break-up, Marceline grits her teeth and hangs around, teasing her, baiting her, flat-out trying her best to annoy her—after they finally make up, years later, she smiles (a little sadly) and explains she didn't want to be forgotten.

**18. Unearth**

"Take my word for it, Princess. Stuff like that should stay buried."

**19. Shield**

Marceline guarded herself with her laughter and tricks, alienated others with her bravado and scary faces; Princess Bubblegum guarded herself with her facts and science, blocked out the world using words like "responsibility" and "sacrifice." With each other, however—they became only more guarded, because it was with each other that they felt the most vulnerable.

**20. Blacklist**

She scowled at the smirk on the vampire's lips, the smugness in her voice, and opened her mouth to say—_Marcy, I've missed you_—"Get out of my room, Marceline."

**21. Misquoted**

"Marceline, I never said 'I love you'. I said, 'Your hair smells like demon blood.' And I said it in German."

**22. Copying**

As the romance movie at Finn and Jake's hit its halfway mark, Bonnibel reached for the hovering vampire's hand and felt her way around her cool, slender fingers; by the end of the film, Marceline was settled snugly in Bubblegum's lap.

**23. Argue**

When Jake agreed to listen to a demo of Marceline's new song, he hadn't realized it would feature lyrics like _"She's so beautiful / I wanna kiss her so, so bad"_ and _"I can't believe her stupid face / I wish she'd just... DIE"_ in the same verse. (_"Um, uh. Something bothering you, Marceline?"_)

**24. Lens**

"I think Princess Bubblegum's got the hots for you." Clearly, Ice King's sanity was in an even worse state than Marceline had thought. (_"You're funny, Simon." "What-mon?"_)

**25. Bell**

Everything Marceline touches has an expiration date. (_"Marcy? ...Why are you crying?"_)

**26. Arrest**

"I don't want you to leave yet." "Then... I guess I'll just have to stay, huh?"

**27. Havoc**

A slightly bitter smirk crooked a corner of Marceline's lips upwards as she watched Finn—the poor kid—drool over Bonnibel, entirely oblivious to where that road would lead him.

**28. Tool**

"Honestly. It's just a silly shirt."

**29. Blanket**

When Marceline went home, she'd leave Bubblegum's pillows smelling like evening dew and wintry mornings and, somehow, campfire smoke—something that didn't quite match the cool blues and greys of the other fragrances, but managed to blend and fade into the vampire's jumbled familiar scent anyways. (Bubblegum smelled like a candy store, like a lost memory so faded that Marceline could no longer be certain it was ever real.)

**30. Fancy**

"1 INTERESTING SENSE OF HUMOUR + 1 CUTE BLUSH + 2 WEIRDLY ATTRACTIVE MUSIC-PLAYING HANDS + SMELLS REALLY NICE = I WANT TO DO HER." (_"What're you writing there, Peebs? Looks complicated." "Oh, um, yes! It's nothing you'd understand."_)

**31. Dash**

A whisper: "Don't move." The vampire closed her eyes just as a feathery pair of lips trailed across her left cheek, danced gently around her mouth and traced the shape of her fangs. (_"...That should be enough for my research. Thank you."_)

**32. Away**

Every time she watches Bubblegum turn and leave, it feels like the princess is taking a piece of Marceline with her. (_Every time she so much as looks at Marceline, the vampire is stealing a piece of Bubblegum away._)

**33. Syndication**

There was a part of them both that wanted nothing more than to destroy herself for the other.

**34. Champagne**

"So, um, here's to Princess didja-know-her-first-name-is-Bonnibel Bubblegum. With many more to come, happy days, yeah, yeah... So hey, did you know your princess is also great in bed—" "_MARCELINE._"

**35. Note**

A pretty little piano, Bonnie remembered, used to sit in a corner of the castle ballroom and when it was dark and nobody was there the two of them used to play it together, their knees touching and Marceline gingerly guiding Bonnie's hands across the keys; their scrambled messes of songs were a sad excuse for music, but to Bonnie each lingering note sounded more beautiful than the last.

**36. Physical**

The little shoulder-touches, the instinctive grabbing of the other girl's hand, the idle habit of coiling the thick raven locks of hair around her left wrist as they talked—Bubblegum couldn't stop herself, even as she watched what they did to Marceline, how they made her voice crack and her breath falter and her heart fracture.

**37. Dull**

On some days Marceline would just crash in Bubblegum's bedroom, curtains drawn to block out the early morning sun, and it was on those days that Bubblegum found it the hardest to get out of bed. (_"Mm... For an undead demon, you're astonishingly warm."_)

**38. Frozen**

For a while it really seemed like for the rest of their overly long lives their relationship would be stuck on that one moment: _"I can't do this anymore."_

**39. Stumble**

Sometimes they'd spend time together in the Ooo library and it would inevitably end up with Bubblegum trying to read but really just clumsily stumbling over the words with her eyes as Marceline hovered behind her and fiddled lazily with her hair. (_"Y'know, this stuff is weirdly soft. Mm. Smells nice too."_)

**40. Hunt**

Marceline wouldn't deny that after their falling-out she had done her best to wreak havoc on Bubblegum's sanity, to tear apart her emotions with her presence and sarcastic flirting and clumsy mind games—what she would never admit was that they had been trying to destroy each other long before their argument was given shape and made verbal, that a sort of resentment had already existed in their heads for the duration of the last months of their friendship.

**41. Gibberish**

Like most things, it started as a grassland—then there was the little camp settlement and the villages and the walled city, and then when Marceline returned from another half-century in the Nightosphere there was suddenly a sprawling pink kingdom, and at its head a girl made of bubblegum who had a way of making Marceline's heart jump into her throat.

**42. Camp**

"I'm not joking, _Bonnibel._ I'll stay here all night if I have to." She did have to, and in the end Bonnie still hadn't explained what was wrong—in fact, she hadn't spoken a word to Marceline at all.

**43. Weak**

Bubblegum knew that even in a world as bizarre as theirs, they'd never work out; Marceline was too self-centered and immature and selfish, and Bubblegum—well, Bubblegum was far more selfish, so she shut her eyes and told herself everything would be okay despite it all.

**44. Bargain**

She loved the shape of Marceline's shoulders underneath her hands and the feel of Marceline's arms around her waist as they hung suspended in the starless summer sky, loved the moonlit smile on Marceline's lips while she asked silly questions like _"What if I dropped you right now?"_ and loved the blush on Marceline's cheeks when she breathed secret answers like _"I promise to kiss you if you don't."_

**45. Alcohol**

She loves Marceline, she thinks, in the same way that Ice King loves his crown and the Lord of Evil loves watching the hurt flash across his daughter's eyes—in a cursed way, a warped, painful way.

**46. Wind**

Marceline had lived enough and seen enough to know that things were complicated to the point that nothing was really complicated at all—that if her heart soared and her face smiled whenever she saw the candy princess, it was enough.

**47. Temptation**

"How many times can you touch me," she murmured, "before finally doing _this?_" (And that was when their lips collided, and Bonnie's fingers were tangled in her hair and Marceline's hand stopped tracing words on her knee and started tracing them on the other girl's back.)

**48. Eighteen**

It takes Bonnibel seven 18th birthdays, eight 19th birthdays, and three more 18th birthdays to say the words out loud—_"Marry me?"_

**49. Bottle**

"God," Marceline laughs, and in a heartbeat her arms are around Bonnie and her fingers are playing a soft song on her spine, releasing two dozen years' worth of nervous energy. "About time, Princess."

**50. Rhythm **

When they broke up, someone, one of them, maybe the two of them together, had set the piano in the ballroom on fire, trampled the ashes underneath their heels, but then by some mysterious means a new piano was sitting in the ballroom a few years, a decade later—as time dragged on and the pianos in the Ooo junkyards ran out, eventually, finally, they stopped setting them on fire.

(_"You are never getting out of _my_ eternal empire."  
"That's okay—I've already fallen too far."_)


End file.
